Hexmate or Hero's Hex

Board Layout

The board is made up of 127 red, white, and black hexagons, with a white hex
at each corner and the very center of the board. No hex may share an edge with
an identical color. (See image below)

Rules and Pieces

21 Pawns. Each pawn may move forward one square, either
forward left or forward right. They capture by normal movement
into a hex. If pawns reach the back row of their opponent (the
row with seven hexes), they shall be promoted to a queen, a duke,
or a paladin (archbishop), depending on the choice of the player.

6 Knights. Each knight moves and captures in an elongated
L-shape, two moves forward and one move at 120 degrees, without
regard to any intervening pieces, onto a hex of a different
color.

6 Bishops. Each bishop moves along the "diagonals"
of the hexagonal board to a hex of the same color. They cannot be
blocked by any piece or pieces on another color hex, only by a
piece along the same color diagonal.

4 Rooks. Each rook can move any distance along one of the six
columns centered on its hex, unless blocked by a piece on its
column.

3 Paladins (or Archbishops). Combines the moves of a knight
and a bishop.

2 Dukes. Combines the moves of a Knight and Rook.

2 Queens. Combines the moves of a Bishop and Rook

1 King. A "super piece" that can move a single hex in any direction,
and can move as any other piece of the same color remaining on the board. At
the beginning of the game, it combines the movement of Knight, Bishop, and
Rook. After the final piece with a particular movement type is captured, that
movement is lost to the king unless a pawn is promoted with the necessary
movement type. Capturing the king ends the game, hence no move that puts the
player's king into check (danger of immediate capture) is legal, and any check
by an opponent must be removed by the player's next move. In addition to
"baring" his king (having no other pieces on the board to defend
him), a player that cannot get out of check loses the game (is checkmated/hexmated).

Initial Placement

The board is oriented so that a "flat" edge of seven
hexes faces each opponent.

Gameplay

White and black alternate moves, starting with white. A legal
move is one in which a single movement and/or capture follows the
rules for that piece.

A player is in "check" when an opponent's move
directly threatens the player's king with capture. A player may
not move so as to place his king in check, nor may he leave his
king in check during his move. "Checkmate" occurs when
a player places an opponent in check, and the opponent has no
legal moves to get out of check. It is considered a win for the
player, and worth a full point. In addition, a player may resign
an untenable position, taking a loss.

Another method of winning is by "baring" the opponent's king --
removing every other piece of the same color from the board. This is to prevent
long, tedious, memorized endgames of the type computers are famous for. A
totally-destroyed army should count as much as a captured king, so it is worth
a full point (the defeated king receives zero).

A stalemate occurs when the opponent is not in check, but
every legal move would place him in check. It gives advantage to
the player, or 3/4 point for the "winner" to 1/4 point
for the "loser" of the stalemate.

Finally, if no logical progression of moves will yield a
checkmate or a stalemate, or if an identical position occurs
three times in a row, or if fifty moves occur without a capture
or pawn movement, the game shall be considered drawn, and half a
point granted to each side.

Some thoughts behind Hexmate or Hero's Hex

The name "Hexmate" was chosen for rather obvious
reasons -- it is played on a hexagonal board, and the goal is to
checkmate (hexmate) the opponant's king. Well, that and all the
truly cool names combining "hex" and "chess"
seemed to be already taken (Chex and Chexx and Hexchess and
Hexichess and Chesshex and...)

Hero's Hex, on the other hand, might be a better name for it. In chess and
most variants, it seems like the king is a doddering old man, depending on his
amazon-like queen and others to protect him. Not so in this game -- the king
has the strength of the queen combined with the fortitude of a knight, the
power of a duke and the blessings of a bishop, and the bravery of a paladin
inside the defence of a castle. (In other words, it has knight moves, bishop
moves, and rook moves all in one -- as long as it has a piece with matching
movement on the board) It has the strength of that legendary chess piece, the
giraffe, but unlike *that* overpowered piece, it cannot attack the enemy king
directly (theoretically it can in the endgame, if it still has a movement
type not shared by the enemy king, but such circumstances should be rare),
and it's movement options depend on the strength of its remaining forces.
More than a few endgames will have the king as the vital piece in a checkmate
of the opponent. Here are some thoughts behind the design.

My first principle was simplicity -- making certain that rules
for placement, movement, and capturing were simple, and that
complexity arose out of depth of strategy and not exceptions to
overly-complicated rules.

My second principle was symmetry -- left and right sides of
the board are mirror images, as is the setup of both opponents.

My third principle was there had to be some development of
short-range pieces before long-range "power" pieces
could be thrown willy-nilly across the board, and no massive
trade of pieces could take place until at least some setup had
taken place. This meant putting the strongest long-range pieces
along the back row, and the bishops in the next-to-last row, both
blocked by other pieces. They can still be moved out fairly
quickly, but the opponent can protect his forces just as quickly.

My fourth principle was to provide plenty of opportunities for
tactical excitement. One of the most exciting moves in chess is
the queen-king fork. In Hexmate, you can still have the knight
perform the queen-king fork, but in addition you can have the
bishop perform a duke-king fork, and the rook perform a
paladin-king fork (although in each case the forking piece must
have another piece protecting it, because of the king's power).
Every piece, even the three most powerful pieces on the board
(other than the king), can have another, weaker piece "sneak
up" on it (which is why the king is the only
knight-bishop-rook "super piece").

My fifth principle was to provide some semblance of parity
between the various classes. Using values associated with normal
chess, a queen is worth about nine pawns, a duke about the same,
a paladin about seven, a rook about five, a bishop about three,
and a knight about three. Figuring out the number of points tied
up in various pieces, two queens are about eighteen points, two
dukes about the same, three paladins are about twenty-one points,
four rooks about twenty points, six bishops about eighteen
points, and six knights about eighteen points. By having two rows
of pawns in front, we have a total of twenty-one points in pawns.
Of course, in hexagonal chess the values will vary a bit from the
square chess values, but they should be relatively close. Since
the king is a singular piece and losing it means losing the game,
its value is effectively infinite.

My sixth principle was, as mentioned earlier, to make the king the strongest
and the most vital piece on the board. There is a dichotomy between wanting to
use the most powerful piece, and trying to protect him, especially since
losing him spells the end of the game. You couldn't simply hide him in a
corner of the board and expect to win -- a more active king would destroy
your army, and kill the pieces whose survival your king depends on for
movement. Yet relying too heavily on the king means that you put him (and the
game itself) in greater danger. I think that having one powerful piece on the
board at all times (one who's strength is dependent on his other forces) would
make each part of the game exciting, even a pawn's race.

Random musings about the game:

I originally gave the King the combined powers of Knight, Bishop, and Rook.
While this worked well through mid-game, the King had far too much mobility in
the end game to capture without a truly astounding piece advantage. To temper
its mobility in the endgame without ruining the part that worked, I came up with
the following idea: The king has an inherent movement of one hex in any
direction, plus it can move like any other piece of the same color still
remaining on the board. In addition to restricting its mobility in the endgame,
this has an added benefit in strategy: the final piece with a specific movement
type (the last bishop, for example) might suddenly become more valuable than a
strong piece you have plenty of (perhaps you have two rooks, or even a couple of
dukes). In addition, pawn promotion becomes even less "turn pawn into queen
unless the moon is blue" and more "choose a piece that adds movement and
balances your options."

Hexmate Variations

There is a variant of Hexmate, for those who feel the current version has
limited options and strategy (grin). I call it "Hexmate Choice" or
"Hexchoice." Hexchoice uses the same board, pieces, and movement as Hexmate. Even the pawns
are kept in the same position. The difference is that, after a suitably random
method of determining who moves first, players alternate first in placing major
pieces, then in playing the game.

Each player is given thirteen pieces to place -- one king, one queen, one duke, two
paladins, two rooks, three bishops, and three knights. More than thirteen pieces
are actually set upon the board, of course, but because of rules of symmetry,
there are only thirteen options to begin with. The placement restrictions are
simple: all pieces have to be mirrored left and right (if I place a knight in
the bottom left corner, a knight is automatically placed in the bottom right
corner) and all pieces must be mirrored across the board (which means that,
using the preceding example, a knight placed in the far left and far right corners).
The king and one paladin can only be placed on the two center hexes available,
while the three bishops must each be place on different colors. Other than these
restrictions, the pieces may be placed anywhere. To make the games more fair,
the first person to begin placing piece is the second person to move.

To be honest, I haven't tried Hexchoice -- Hexmate even with the default
board is quite difficult. If Hexmate were to be studied for centuries with the
same intensity as chess, I could see where a variation (the Fischer Random Chess
of Hexagonal variants) might be necessary. This version would allow an even
wider range of possibilities while keeping purely random elements to a minimum.

<p>Visiting Random Game pages leads to interesting finds.</p>
<p>This game also uses the idea of the Hero better known (to me) from <a href="http://www.chessvariants.com/diffmove.dir/hero-superhero.html">Hero Chess</a>; last month I noted the same of <a href="http://www.chessvariants.com/large.dir/undenary.html">Undenary Chess</a>. This game and Undenary share the idea of giving Hero powers to the king (whereas Hero Chess has a separate piece). But this game page was published a couple of years prior to either of the others.</p>